Consideration--Jan 1

There is a letter to Phillip Yancey in his book "Searching for the Invisible God" that is interesting.

'I know there is a God: I believe He exists, I just don't know what to believe of Him. What do I expect from this God? Does He intervene upon requests (seldom/often), or am I to accept His Son's sacrifice for my sins, count myself lucky and let the relationship go at that?
I accept that I'm an immature believer, that my expectations of God are obviously not relalistic. I guess I've been disappointed enough times that I simply pray for less and less in order not to be disappointed over and over.
What is a relationship with God supposed to look like anyway? What should we expect from a God who says we are His friends?"

I think many of us feel like this.

My opinion is that the only way we will know what to believe of God is spending time with Him. We cannot know people who we only contact once a year as well as those we spend hours with every day, yet we do not question what we know of those people.
We must pray, read the Word and listen to know God.

Disappointment. I mulled this over, and the answer I came to was this. A parent may say no to a child's wish for whatever the child has asked for. Does the child stop asking for things? I have met few children who stopped their asking for many "no" answers from a parent. It may seem like what we ask of God is infinitely more important that the newest Barbie, X Box game, slumber party, but is it really? To a child, the "no" answer for that toy or party is often very upsetting.

I ask for relief from my pain and illness every day. I ask for relief for those in my support group. Sometimes I get some relief. Sometimes I don't. I do, however, often get an outpouring of love from God, and great peace, which is very very helpful. It makes my battle easier, and gives me strength that I otherwise did not have.

I think our relationship with God will probably look slightly different for every person, since we are all different. And I think that the relationship is a combination of parent/best friend. I also think that the best relationship one has with a human is a pale imitation of a relationship with God. God's friendship is impossibly better--but we have to make steps to have that friendship with time, to know God's character, and to see how merciful, loving and kind He really is to us.